Posted originally on Mar 28, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed on March 26, 2024, at 01:28 EDT after being struck by a cargo ship owned by Brawner Builders Inc. The ship named the Dali was operated by Synergy Marine Group. This black swan event was extremely strange, catastrophic for the US supply chain, and certainly a black swan event. For the purpose of this post, I will refrain from speculation and stick to the facts at hands to explain how crucial this bridge was to the US.
Official reports say that what happened was simply an unfortunate accident. “We’re going to send all the federal resources they need as we respond to this emergency. I mean all the federal resources — we’re going to rebuild that port together,” Biden said after promising to use federal aid to rebuild the bridge, a feat that will take years to achieve. “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident,” he added. “At this time, we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.”
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency stated that there was a “power issue” that caused the crew to lose control of the ship. There was a loss of propulsion from the motor, several tests failed, and the pilots notified the Maryland Department of Transportation and the Maryland Transit Authority. There was an attempt to deploy anchors but it was far too late, especially for a ship of that size and weight.
James Mercante, the president of the New York Board of Pilot Commissioners, said that the Dali became “a dead ship just being carried by the current or its own momentum.”US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg did not say what caused the power outage and does not have a timeframe for when the bridge will be rebuilt. “The impact of this incident is going to be felt throughout the region and really throughout our supply chains,” Buttigieg said. Baltimore is currently under a state of emergency, and Mayor Brandon Scott believes it will last for “the foreseeable future.”
Others believe this was a deliberate attack of US infrastructure based on various factors that do not seem to add up. Could it have been an inside job or a foreign agent? The truth will come to light, as it always does.
Let me begin by explaining how crucial the Francis Scott Key Bridge was to America’s supply chain. Around 52.3 million tons of international cargo estimated to be worth $80.8 billion passed through the port in 2023. Around 4,900 trucks, carrying around $28 billion in goods, must be rerouted due to the bridge collapse. It is the second busiest strategic roadway in the US for hazardous materials. These hazardous materials include diesel fuels. Did you know that diesel fuel is not permitted to be transported via tunnel? Fuel prices will rise, fertilizer prices will rise. The bridge was built to handle hazardous materials like propane, nitrogen, highly-flammable materials, large cargo materials, and more.
The timing could not have been worse for American agriculture.
Baltimore is the largest entry point for all large agricultural and construction equipment, and this will have a ripple effect across US agriculture in general. It has been noted that this collapse occurred during the peak of planting season for Midwest region as the ground has begun to thaw. Our entire food supply is at risk.
The bridge helped to link major cities from Baltimore like Philadelphia, Washington, and New York. Over 15,000 people are employed directly through the port, and 139,000 have indirect jobs in connections. All of this amounts to $3.3 billion in personal income, as noted by Axios.
Analysts are saying this will cripple Baltimore, but it will send ripple effects throughout the entire US economy.
The angle the cargo ship took is extremely confusing. Engineers are perplexed by the situation. How did it manage to take out one of the two major anchor points? The video makes it look as if the ship deliberately steered into an anchor point. The cargo ship never made it into the approach land in the channel. Where was the harbor pilot? There was no horn blast or warning tug. There was no tug boat, but they say that it was not needed once the ship entered the channel. There happened to be a full moon that enabled maximum tidal shift. My eyes may deceive me, but the video footage makes it look like the captain steered directly into the support beam at the last minute.
Half a mile of the bridge simply collapsed. It looks more like a strategic demolition based on how the bridge crumbled. Now, here in Tampa Bay, a cardo ship hit the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over 40 years ago. A portion of the bridge came down but it did not simply fall into the waters in the same manner. This is reminiscent of the 9/11 collapse, but of course, people did not have smart phones back then. This event happened in the middle of the night when few people were around to witness it. Some say this passage is hard to navigate but cargo ships managed just fine for nearly half a century up until this week.
Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley said, “There is absolutely no indication that there’s any terrorism, or that this was done on purpose.” The US government insists this was simply a tragic unpreventable accident. Official reports say there were no signs of explosives and no foreign terrorist agency is claiming responsibility for the event.
The same ship collapsed a bridge in Belgium back in 2016, and I do not think this was an act of foreign terrorism.
This event divided the US along the Mason-Dixon line, bringing us back to the pre-Civil War era. Did US intel have a role in this “accident” that happened at the worst possible time? Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum stated that an attack on infrastructure – a cyber pandemic — would cause the COVID-19 crisis to look like a “small disturbance” in comparison. Carefully watch the video below and note how they explain these events to us long before they take place.
Posted originally on Mar 27, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Russia has come out and bluntly stated that “The United States, Britain and Ukraine are behind the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall, the chief of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) Alexander Bortnikov has told the media.” As I have said, NOBODY who thinks even objectively ever thought for one half-a-second that this had anything to do with ISIS or any Islamic Terrorist attack. First of all, it would be the first time such an act took place, and the terrorists tried to run. They typically die in such events, for they believe all their sins will be forgiven, and they get the 72 virgins.
Unfortunately, this was not very sophisticated to really try to cover up the source being Ukraine. They wanted Russia to know who was really behind this to provoke an attack on any NATO country so they could claim Russia was the aggressor. They need Russia to formally attack first to rally the stupid to die on the battlefield in Ukraine for God & Country, which is really for the NEOCONS since we don’t really have a president in charge of anything.
Putin supports Iran, so it makes no sense whatsoever that there would be a terrorist attack against Russia. The source is at least Ukraine, and since the USA claimed it warned Russia, it only implicates the NECONS, and quite frankly, I have been warning that they were attempting to create war BEFORE the election while they still have their hand-puppet, Biden. That week was the strongest target for a turning point, and everything appeared to unfold precisely according to time. The truth will also surface when history books are written, like the Weapons of Mass Destruction that never existed.
The two periods the computer was projecting for war were May and July/August. With Putin’s inauguration on May 7th, this attack was timed for the same old attempt to force the Russian people to rise up against Putin and instigate regime change. This is not going to happen. May is the most important target for the entire year. Look at the volatility in June.
I wish the computer was wrong. This is NOT my personal opinion. I have tried my best to warn the world that this does NOT look good. As I have said, I have been trying to defeat the computer because that is what I would prefer personally for my own family. But my personal objectives are irrelevant. My job is to report what the computer says, and our clients can interpret the arrays themselves.
I have been warning for years that gold does NOT respond to the BS of inflation and fiat currency nonsense. Gold responds to geopolitical events because it is NEUTRAL, and the government spends money ten times faster during the war. Gold is still in the process of making a channel move, and we are heading into April, and this can get tricky. If gold gets through the $2300 level on a closing basis, then we could test the $2500 level in April, all on the back of geopolitical uncertainty. Back in 1980, gold virtually doubled in the last six weeks because Russia invaded Afghanistan.
We need the computer right now because personal opinions are just guessing.
Posted originally on Mar 27, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
In 1996, the US government released a white paper entitled, “How to make a mint: the cryptography of anonymous electronic cash.” Released by the National Security Agency Office of Information Security Research and Technology, this document basically explains how a government agency could create something like Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.
I encourage those interested to read the contents of the link above. This document was released during the dawn of the dot.com bubble before the technology existed to create such a currency. The NSA quickly realized that it could weaponize this technology to create a cashless society.
As explained in the introduction:
“Among the most important uses of this technology is electronic commerce: performing financial transactions via electronic information exchanged over telecommunications lines. A key requirement for electronic commerce is the development of secure and efficient electronic payment systems. The need for security is highlighted by the rise of the Internet, which promises to be a leading medium for future electronic commerce.
Electronic payment systems come in many forms including digital checks, debit cards, credit cards, and stored value cards. The usual security features for such systems are privacy (protection from eavesdropping), authenticity (provides user identification and message integrity), and nonrepudiation (prevention of later denying having performed a transaction) .
The type of electronic payment system focused on in this paper is electronic cash. As the name implies, electronic cash is an attempt to construct an electronic payment system modelled after our paper cash system. Paper cash has such features as being: portable (easily carried), recognizable (as legal tender) hence readily acceptable, transferable (without involvement of the financial network), untraceable (no record of where money is spent), anonymous (no record of who spent the money) and has the ability to make "change." The designers of electronic cash focused on preserving the features of untraceability and anonymity. Thus, electronic cash is defined to be an electronic payment system that provides, in addition to the above security features, the properties of user anonymity and payment untraceability..
In general, electronic cash schemes achieve these security goals via digital signatures. They can be considered the digital analog to a handwritten signature. Digital signatures are based on public key cryptography. In such a cryptosystem, each user has a secret key and a public key. The secret key is used to create a digital signature and the public key is needed to verify the digital signature. To tell who has signed the information (also called the message), one must be certain one knows who owns a given public key. This is the problem of key management, and its solution requires some kind of authentication infrastructure. In addition, the system must have adequate network and physical security to safeguard the secrecy of the secret keys.”
The introduction goes on to discuss the reasons they could present to the public to switch to a cashless society, including money laundering, convenience, and security. “The term electronic commerce refers to any financial transaction involving the electronic transmission of information. The packets of information being transmitted are commonly called electronic tokens,” the paper continues.
The NSA states that it would like to use “user identification” and “message integrity” to protect privacy in “nonrepudiation” transactions. “Eavesdropping” concerns appear numerous times throughout the document, which could be prevented by “not just privacy but anonymity” in the form of “payer anonymity” and “payment untraceability.” The government clearly states that hard currency, cash, provided these luxuries but could not be traced by the banks and, therefore, the government.
Again, this was released in 1996 before basic online banking. The document outlines basic online banking but takes it a step further by explaining how they could seemingly make payments seem “untraceable” to the public using “blind signatures” that allegedly cannot be seen by the bank. “This step is called “blinding” the coin, and the random quantity is called the blinding factor. The Bank signs this random-looking text, and the user removes the blinding factor.”
Alice sends the blinded coin to the Bank with a withdrawal request.
Bank digitally signs the blinded coin.
Bank sends the signed blinded coin to Alice and debits her account.
Alice unblinds the signed coin.
Payment/Deposit:
Alice gives Bob the coin.
Bob contacts Bank and sends coin.
Bank verifies the Bank’s digital signature.
Bank verifies that coin has not already been spent.
Bank enters coin in spent-coin database.
Bank credits Bob’s account and informs Bob.
Bob gives Alice the merchandise.
“This makes remote transactions using electronic cash totally anonymous: no one knows where Alice spends her money and who pays her.” Full “payment anonymity” would be “too much to ask”, thus, “we are forced to settle for payer anonymity.” In other words, the illusion that no one knows who is making the transaction.
PROTOCOL 5:Off-line cash.
Withdrawal:
Alice creates an electronic coin, including identifying information.
Alice blinds the coin.
Alice sends the blinded coin to the Bank with a withdrawal request.
Bank verifies that the identifying information is present.
Bank digitally signs the blinded coin.
Bank sends the signed blinded coin to Alice and debits her account.
Alice unblinds the signed coin.
Payment:
Alice gives Bob the coin.
Bob verifies the Bank’s digital signature.
Bob sends Alice a challenge.
Alice sends Bob a response (revealing one piece of identifying info).
Bob verifies the response.
Bob gives Alice the merchandise.
Deposit:
Bob sends coin, challenge, and response to the Bank.
Bank verifies the Bank’s digital signature.
Bank verifies that coin has not already been spent.
Bank enters coin, challenge, and response in spent-coin database.
Bank credits Bob’s account.
Note that, in this protocol, Bob must verify the Bank’s signature before giving Alice the merchandise. In this way, Bob can be sure that either he will be paid or he will learn Alice’s identity as a multiple spender.
The government begins to explain basic blockchain concepts, or at least how they’d like them to occur.
“When Alice spends her coins with Bob, his challenge to her is a string of K random bits. For each bit, Alice sends the appropriate piece of the corresponding pair. For example, if the bit string starts 0110. . ., then Alice sends the first piece of the first pair, the second piece of the second pair, the second piece of the third pair, the first piece of the fourth pair, etc. When Bob deposits the coin at the Bank, he sends on these K pieces.
If Alice re-spends her coin, she is challenged a second time. Since each challenge is a random bit string, the new challenge is bound to disagree with the old one in at least one bit. Thus Alice will have to reveal the other piece of the corresponding pair. When the Bank receives the coin a second time, it takes the two pieces and combines them to reveal Alice's identity…
Zero-Knowledge Proofs. The term zero-knowledge proof refers to any protocol in public-key cryptography that proves knowledge of some quantity without revealing it (or making it any easier to find it). In this case, Alice creates a key pair such that the secret key points to her identity. (This is done in such a way the Bank can check via the public key that the secret key in fact reveals her identity, despite the blinding.) In the payment protocol, she gives Bob the public key as part of the electronic coin. She then proves to Bob via a zero-knowledge proof that she possesses the corresponding secret key. If she responds to two distinct challenges, the identifying information can be put together to reveal the secret key and so her identity.”
The document then discusses ways to blind the signature, so that the payee may remain anonymous. Now, why would the government allow that to occur? “Even in anonymous, untraceable payment schemes, the identity of the multiple-spender can be revealed when the abuse is detected. Detection after the fact may be enough to discourage multiple spending in most cases, but it will not solve the problem. If someone were able to obtain an account under a false identity, or were willing to disappear after re-spending a large sum of money, they could successfully cheat the system.”
The document even discusses what we now would refer to as a crypto wallet. A seemingly safe offline method to store these electronic coins. They explain that at least one party must always reveal their hand. “When a coin is spent, the spender uses his secret to create a valid response to a challenge from the payee. The payee will verify the response before accepting the payment. In Brands’ scheme with wallet observers, this user secret is shared between the user and his observer. The combined secret is a modular sum of the two shares, so one share of the secret reveals no information about the combined secret.”
Who is the “observer” in this scenario? “An observer could also be used to trace the user’s transactions at a later time, since it can keep a record of all transactions in which it participates. However, this requires that the Bank (or whoever is doing the tracing) must be able to obtain the observer and analyze it. Also, not all types of observers can be used to trace transactions.”
In the event that a transaction was compromised, the bank would have to change its secret key and “INVALIDATE ALL COINS.”
The authors explain that tax evasion, per usual, is the key concern. They mention money laundering and “old crimes such as kidnapping and blackmail” as reasons to allow backdoor entry. Restoring traceability was a proposed solution, and if they could restore traceability in the first place, one must question if the payments were ever truly anonymous. Using Alice as their example, they explain that they could simply issue a warrant and track all her payment history. “Back~ard traceability is the ability to identify a withdrawal record (and hence the payer), given a deposit record (and hence the identity of the payee). Backward tracing will reveal who Alice has been receiving payments from.”
So, while the bank only sees the deposit in encrypted form, the public key must be used for withdrawal. “The ability to trace transactions in either direction can help law enforcement officials catch tax evaders and money launderers by revealing who has paid or has been paid by the suspected criminal. Electronic blackmailers can be caught because the deposit numbers of the victim’s ill-gotten coins could be decrypted, identifying the blackmailer when the money is deposited.”
“In conclusion, the potential risks in electronic commerce are magnified when anonymity is present. Anonymity creates the potential for large sums of counterfeit money to go undetected by preventing the identification of forged coins. Anonymity also provides an avenue for laundering money and evading taxes that is difficult to combat without resorting to escrow mechanisms. Anonymity can be provided at varying levels, but increasing the level of anonymity also increases the potential damages. It is necessary to weigh the need for anonymity with these concerns. It may well be concluded that these problems are best avoided by using a secure electronic payment system that provides privacy, but not anonymity.”
The US government released this document in 1996, 27 years ago. Bitcoin was allegedly anonymously created in 2009, and numerous other blockchain-based payment coins have followed. This, paired with the push for CBDC, where the government simply does not need to pretend payments are anonymous, should make one question the security and longevity of cryptocurrencies.
Posted originally on the CTH on March 27, 2024 | Sundance
The NTSB gives an update on the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse in Baltimore, Maryland, following the impact of a Singaporean-flagged cargo ship, the Dali.
According to the update, 56 containers of hazardous materials were on board, including corrosive flammable cells, lithium ion batteries, and other hazardous materials. Some of the HAZMAT containers were compromised and some fell into the water. The briefing also gives a preliminary outline as an outcome of an initial review of the voyage data recorder (VDR) for six hours 00:00 to 06:00 on the morning of the impact. The timeline discussion occurs at 11:00 of the video below. WATCH:
(Via Fox News) -[…] Homendy said the investigation would be a “massive undertaking” that is expected two take one to two years. She added that the NTSB will not hesitate to issue urgent safety recommendations during that time frame. A preliminary report is expected in only two to four weeks.
Part of the investigation will be determining what caused the ship to lose power before hitting the bridge. The source of that outage remained unknown as of Wednesday, Homendy said.
Homendy said tugboats were called to help the vessel leave the port and get to the main channel. The vessel does not have any tugboats at this time. Homendy confirmed that vessel did not have any tugboats helping it navigate through the waters before it hit the bridge. The VDR showed that the pilot called for tugboats just before 1:30 a.m. after the vessel hit the bridge.
The NTSB has confirmed that there were 21 crewmembers on board the vessel at the time of the accident plus two pilots. (LINK)
We know that the Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum is trying to take over the world. with their Great Reset and Build Back Better program. We also know that Klaus’s Young Global leaders are impeded in high places in every major country and probably some of the US Neocons are with him. So what does this have to do with the Francis Scott Key bridge being destroyed by being hit my a cargo ship that just happens to be out of the channel and having a “power” failure and hitting one of the two main support column taking down the entire span over the Chesapeake Bay.
(Via MSM) – […] The Singapore-flagged 948 ft. Dali vessel crashed into a column supporting the Francis Scott Key Bridge at around 1:30 a.m. local time in Baltimore, causing part of the bridge to collapse and catch fire before sinking.
The port of Baltimore is a key port in the US and it is now shut down until all the debris in the bay can be removed. Shutting this port down is a major blow to the US economy and also to the EU which gets coal and LNG to make up for what that they can no longer get from Russia. We also know the the US was involved in taking out Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipe lines into Germany. And that was blamed on Russia even though it made no sense.
Why do I think this is a False Flag event? Well we know the US Neocons what war with Russia so what if they used CIA resources to hack into the ships systems and steer in into the bridge support. Then claim it was the Russians that did it. This would be a direct attack on the US and would mean Biden could declare War on Russia. This would be a perfect False Flag event!
Look at the bow of the container ship there is no damage to it how is that possible?
This is my personal opinion based on education and knowledge of the operations of the IC community.
Posted originally on Mar 27, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Prime Minister Donald Tusk initially promised to double the annual tax-free income allowance to 60,000 zloty (€13,929), but now “there is no room” in the budget. Why? All of the money is going to Ukraine.
Poland increased its defense budget to 3% of GDP in 2022, followed by a raise to 4% in 2023. Poland provides NATO with more funding as a percentage of GDP than any other European nation.
It will not be possible to double the tax-free income allowance to 60,000 zloty – which Donald Tusk had promised to do this year – until 2026 at the earliest, says the finance minister.
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 25, 2024
The reason that Poland is unable to say when or how they will decrease taxes is WAR. Finance Minister Andrzej Domański is promising the people that the government will fulfill its promises by 2026. “In my opinion, at the moment, there is no room for the tax-free amount to increase to PLN 60,000 next year,” he told Polsat News. “We are in a near-war situation. We have rapidly increasing defence spending …The scale of incoming defence spending is really high,” the prime minister said, highlighting how much the Polish government is currently spending on Ukraine.
Polish exports to Ukraine rose 25% in 2017. In 2022, Ukraine exported $6.7 billion in goods to Poland, primarily in agricultural products, while Poland provided Ukraine with $9.07 billion in mainly energy and ammunition. The war in Ukraine has only strengthened trade between the neighboring coutries.
Russia has no intention of invading Poland, despite the government’s fearmongering. Instead, the people are being forced to fund an endless war on behalf of their government. The fact that the government cannot determine when funds will be free for use shows that they are planning for a prolonged battle on Ukrainian soil.
Posted originally on Mar 26, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
The Western Press continues to report only the propaganda from the NEOCON mouthpiece, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which Victoria Nuland’s sister-in-law runs. I have warned that they were trying to start war BEFORE the election, and the two main targets in time were May and July. Be very careful of any media that uses the ISW as its source. It was Victoria Nuland’s husband, Robert Kagan, who wrote the Washington Post piece calling Trump a dictator because his wife has been in every administration EXCEPT Trump’s.
Victoria Nuland is really of Ukrainian Jewish descent. Her family changed their name to try to hide their Jewish ethnic background. She really would be Nudelman, not Nuland. She is actually the daughter of Yale bioethics and medicine professor Sherwin B. Nuland, who changed his surname from Nudelman to Nuland. She has retained her family name Nuland to perhaps further hide her Jewish connection by being married to Robert Kagan. Victoria speaks Russian, French, and some Chinese. Hiding her Jewish background is critical. Her father was raised by parents who were Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Hence, her grandparents were Jewish Meyer Nudelman (1889-1958) and Vitsche Lutsky (1893-1941). This explains why Nuland has been a public proponent for Ukraine to wage war against Russia.
Her husband, Robert Kagan, authored the “real Iraq Study Group” report of the American Enterprise Institute. This was the Neocon view of regime change. Kagan was said to have convinced President George W. Bush, to order the “surge” plan for changing the course of the Iraq War. It was Kagan who co-founded the neoconservative think tank in 1997 which was known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) with fellow Neocon William Kristol, who has a track record of usually being wrong. This has been the legacy of the Neocons in general.
Ron Paul plainly wrote: “Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. “ It is indeed time that we examine their Neocons who constantly usurp American foreign policy and will drive us straight into World War III. This may indeed be a family feud with Russia given both the Jewish and Ukrainian backgrounds.
Her Husband and Kristol used PNAC, from 1998 onward, to further the Neocon wars and their quest for Regime Change. Kagan was an early and strong advocate of military action in Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan as well as to “remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power”. Kristol and Kagan teamed up and wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times where they put forth what is now known as fake news: They actually wrote:
“It is clear that Mr. Hussein wants his weapons of mass destruction more than he wants oil revenue or relief for hungry Iraqi children.”
They put forth their idea that the United States had the right to engage in regime change in other countries. They also wrote in the New York Times:
“And Iraq’s Arab neighbors are more likely to support a military effort to remove him than an ineffectual bombing raid that leaves a dangerous man in power.”
What I know from sources was that there was an intelligence report dated September 21st, 2001, that stated bluntly that there was NO evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks. Later, in the 2004 9/11 Commission report, they too concluded that there was NO “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
The objective here is once again to bring about a REGIME CHANGE this time in Russia. I was in the middle of all of that back in 1999 when they wanted me to invest $10 billion into Hermitage Capital. I refused. I am very concerned about MAY for the computer has targeted that month as a monumental turning point with a Directional Change and rising volatility after that. These people are DESPERATE to keep their hand-puppet Joe Biden in office, for they can do whatever they want. The proposition is to create war BEFORE the election, banking on the prospect that no incumbent president has ever lost during a war. Of course, LBJ refused to run after he realized he had been lied to to get involved in Vietnam.
Nobody believes this attack in Moscow was Islamic Terrorists. They die in such events that they go to heaven, and all sins are forgiven in a holy war. These four guys fled back to Ukraine. Anyone can pick up a phone and take credit for something. If this were a terror attack, you would expect it to have been in the USA since Putin supports Iran. It just does not make any sense, and as Churchill warned, during the war, TRUTH is so precious she has a bodyguard of lies to protect her and keep her neatly hidden. Like the Weapons of Mass Destruction that never existed, the truth will surface in the history books.
Those in the UK are familiar with the challenges that accompany failed housing regulations, high demand, and low supply. A recent study by Resolution Foundation shows that those in the UK pay far more for housing than any nation in the OECD. Finland technically pays more, but not when factoring in the total amount the average Brit spends on housing costs. To put it in perspective, housing in the UK is nearly 50% more than the cost of others goods and services, the study found.
We warned about variable rate mortgages at the 2019 World Economic Conference in Rome. Mortgage rates have remained elevated since that period in the wake of the COVID economic tragedy. The UK has a higher rate of inflation than the general Euro Area at 3.4% in February vs 2.6%. The Bank of England is continuing to aim for that 2% target, similar to the Federal Reserve, but misaligned monetary and fiscal policies make it challenging.
Around 40% of housing was built in the early 1900s, the oldest inventory in the EU. Homes are significantly smaller, making apartments in New York City look lavish. Yet, co-housing arrangements are on the rise as people struggle to find a space to live. One in six young adults between 18 and 34 (2.6 million people) live in poor-quality housing, according to a report by the same think-tank. Overall, one in 10 people across the UK (6.5 million) live in subpar housing conditions. Homelessness is on the rise, especially among the youth. Youth homelessness in London has risen 20%, and Centrepoint Databank statistics reported an 8% rise (112,000 people) in young people seeking homelessness prevention measures.
Housing will be a key topic of discussion for the next election. Both sides want to implement plans to assist first-time buyers, but no one has made any meaningful progress to streamline the homebuying process or curtail the countless issues. One of the main issues is the migrant crisis – where will they house an additional 1.2 million new people when citizens cannot find housing? Simply put, the UK is full.
Posted originally on Mar 26, 2024 By Martin Armstrong
Most first-world nations are experiencing a crisis in housing affordability as there is simply not enough supply to meet the demand. Major corporations swept up the majority of homes when mortgage rates were artificially low. Those who own are less likely to less as they could downsize and still have a larger mortgage bill due to current rates. The Biden Administration has proposed a number of solutions, but none of them will solve the housing crisis.
Biden wants to punish landlords for “rent gouging” as part of his re-election strategy. “My administration is cracking down on big corporations who break antitrust laws by price fixing to keep the rents up,” Biden said in Las Vegas. “Landlords should be competing to give folks the best deal, not conspiring to charge them more.” The majority of landlords renting out homes would fall in the middle-class category. The elites are not using individual apartments or homes for their passive income. There are instances of price gouging, but landlords have no choice but to raise rent in the face of rising taxes and insurance premiums. Landlords are not providing housing as a public service. This is yet another method to punish the middle class that will result in a decrease in inventory when it is no longer lucrative for landlords to rent to those who cannot afford to buy.
As for purchasing, private investors accounted for 44% of all single-family home purchases in 2023 after three consecutive years of major corporations expanding their real estate portfolios. BlackRock is the largest landlord in America with a portfolio of over $120 in residential real estate. The goal is to own as much land as possible so that the people can become perpetual renters. BlackRock also is part of the World Economic Forum promises “sustainability” and “ESG integration,” and is a member of GRESB (formerly the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark). GRESB is the global standard for providing and acquiring real estate and infrastructure in a sustainable way.
Biden plans to address the demand issue by building 2 million new homes to the tune of $20 billion. Well, we just experienced an influx of nearly 8 million new arrivals and his administration refuses to close the border. The plans for these housing are loose but the key is “affordability,” meaning these homes will go toward those already receiving government assistance. “My plan will also establish an innovative program to help communities build and renovate housing or convert housing from empty office spaces into housing, empty hotels into housing,” Biden said. He is looking at expanding the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit and providing low-income citizens and non-citizens with taxpayer funding to purchase homes. Again, this is an attack on the middle class and an action that will raise inflation.
You must realize that Biden, the US government, the EU, and countless others have openly said they are committed to the Great Reset presented by the World Economic Forum. YOU WILL OWN NOTHING! That is the plan here and precisely why the Biden Administration is taking action to hurt the middle class, and they have diluted the people into thinking they are above or below “middle class” standing. In every communist form of government, the middle class vanishes and you have the “haves” and the “have nots.” The WEF has presented their plans various times for 15-minute cities. There will be no solution to the housing crisis as there will be no solution to the migrant crisis because both are needed to push forward the Great Reset.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Centinel2012 